Hi Records Hit Man & Memphis Soul Survivor Teams with Hi Rhythm Members & Producer Scott Bomar for Career Retrospective & New Music
If you turn your ears a certain way, You Make Me Feel (June 19, Fat Possum) by soul great Don Bryant can be heard as a love letter to his wife of 50 years, Ann Peebles. “I fell in love with Ann when she first came in to Hi,” he reveals. “But there was so much going on with her—recording, travel, so many around her—it wasn’t my time. And I wasn’t in no hurry—I knew I wasn’t going nowhere! We got to know each other better and better and it opened up. It was a long drawn out situation, but for me it was love at first sight.” Produced by Scott Bomar, who recently scored Dolemite Is My Name and mixed by Matt Ross-Spang (Elvis Presley, Al Green, John Prine), You Make Me Feel (June 19, Fat Possum) continues Don’s resurgence with newly written music and a revisit to Don’s celebrated back catalog, where he’s interpreting some of his songs for the first time. Musicians include members of the Hi Rhythm section — Howard Grimes, Archie “Hubbie” Turner and Charles Hodges, who played on his by Al Green and Ann Peebles — with members of St. Paul and the Broken Bones and The Bo-Keys.
“Is It Over” is one of Don’s “finest performances on the record,” says Scott Bomar, who co-wrote the song with Bryant. “Sometimes people don’t want to admit that a relationship is over, so they go ‘round and ‘round in a circle,” adds Don,” “So I wanted to ask, is it over and if it is, should it be this way? If not, what’s going on?”
“It feels good to have found my own voice,” says Don, who never stopped writing. “Music has always been a part of me, I’ve never given up on it, never let it go. If I’m walking around, I’m humming songs. Now, I’m trying to let it all out. What I had, what I got, and what I’m gonna get.”
Don is nearing the age of 80, and You Make Me Feel is his third solo album. His 1969 debut Precious Soul was produced by Willie Mitchel, who planned for Bryant to be Hi Records’ next star. Don instead took a supporting role and made a career as a Hi Records hit man, namely as the songwriter and background singer for Peebles, who topped the charts in 1974 with “I Can’t Stand the Rain.” Ann retired from music in 2012, and Don returned to the spotlight in 2017 with his second album, Don’t Give Up on Love. One of the many standouts on Make You Feel is the reprise of “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me,” a single Don originally released in 1965. The new version is slowed down, and as anyone who has ever pleaded—for love, for life, for time—we know that the slow petition is more effective… but so much harder to carry out. Don recorded a new version of “99 Pounds” “to put some light on Ann,” he demurs, and there’s a punch to this new version that would make Willie Mitchell proud—classic soul with a 21st century power. And he doesn’t shy from the darker feelings; “Is It Over” sounds like it might date to 1973, when Otis Clay recorded Bryant’s song, “I Die a Little Each Day,” also featured on the album. “My main thing is to tell a story,” reflects Don. “Taking an idea and making a full story out of it is a challenge to me. I go back to look at situations in my life, work the story in my head…If you can tap into things that people go through, then they want to listen.”
You Make Me Feel
1. Your Love Is to Blame (Bomar/Bryant)
2. 99 Pounds (Bryant)
3. Is It Over (Bomar/Bryant)
4. I Die a Little Each Day (Bryant)
5. Don’t Turn Your Back on Me (Bryant)
6. Your Love Is too Late (Bomar/Bryant)
7. I’ll Go Crazy (J. Cross, M. Cross, Frierson)
8. Cracked Up over You (Bryant)
9. A Woman’s Touch (Bomar/Bryant)
10. Walk All Over God’s Heaven (P.D., arranged by Bomar/Bryant)
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